WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House economic adviser Larry Summers hit back on Thursday at a senior Republican congressional leader's comment that "little punk staffers" are working on U.S. financial reform legislation.
Representative John Boehner, the Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, spoke to bankers at a ...More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Thursday against two firms in Gaza -- Islamic National Bank and Al-Aqsa Television -- for their ties to the ruling Hamas movement.
The Treasury said the sanctions prohibit Americans from transactions with the entities and seek to freeze any assets they may have ...More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Thursday that sweeping healthcare overhaul legislation was on track for passage by the U.S. House of Representatives and would cut the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first 10 years.
Expanding healthcare coverage will cost about $940 billion ...More
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will visit Haiti on Monday to discuss the impoverished country's long-term recovery after a January earthquake killed hundreds of thousands of people.
More than a million people were also left homeless when the magnitude 7 quake ...More
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Democratic stalwart Barbara Boxer risks losing her U.S. Senate seat in the November election, a California poll showed on Thursday, in a sign that voter backlash is spreading to a reliably liberal state.
President Barack Obama is defending strong Democratic majorities in Congress at a time ...More
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East peace envoy will return to the region on Sunday, having postponed a trip this week over an Israeli settlement plan, a senior Palestinian official told Reuters.
George Mitchell's visit had been expected to usher in indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks, but ...More
MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday in a last-minute addition to her visit to Moscow, a U.S. official told reporters.
Clinton arrived in Russia on Thursday to try to clear obstacles to a new treaty cutting arsenals ...More
BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States kept up pressure on China on Thursday to let the yuan climb as Beijing disclosed it was sounding out exporters on whether they could cope with a stronger exchange rate.
Washington wants Beijing to abandon a currency peg against the dollar that U.S. lawmakers ...More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate is close to wrapping up talks ahead of introducing a compromise climate change bill, said a top Democratic lawmaker who discussed ideas with industry groups on Wednesday.
"We're planning to button up our efforts somewhere I hope next week," Senator John Kerry told reporters after ...More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate Democrat asked top drugmakers on Wednesday to explain why Americans pay higher prices for prescription drugs than patients do in other developed nations.
Senator Herb Kohl, who chairs the Special Committee on Aging, sent letters to AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sanofi-Aventis.
Kohl said ...More
